


Migraines

by Onlymostydead



Category: Feverwake - Victoria Lee
Genre: Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Content, M/M, Pre and Post TFK, migraines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-07 01:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18400703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onlymostydead/pseuds/Onlymostydead
Summary: Telepathy is both a blessing and a curse. Dara Shirazi thought that he knew that well enough before Noam Alvaro joined Level IV, with his handsome face and constantly screaming thoughts.





	Migraines

**Author's Note:**

> I actually do get migraines, not sure why I need to say that, but...
> 
> Based on a prompt I saw on Instagram!

Dara knew that, with his... Unique presenting power, he tended to be a little bit moody. More than a little moody. Being a telepath meant always hearing thoughts and secrets and feelings and choices - twenty four seven. Usually, it came in handy, but right now? It was proving to be a massive headache.

Literally. Because the new cadet, apparently, had a lot to scream about on the inside. He was Atlantian, for one. Grew up dirt poor in stark contrast to the surplus of everything in Level IV. His thoughts shouted his entire background, pounding against Dara's head. It was like Lehrer said: doing something takes magic, but sometimes undoing something magical can take just as much effort. Trying to silence him was not worth the amount of focus it would take from his studies; Lehrer would notice the drain and would question his actions.

But Noam Alvaro was an interesting one, for sure. Dara just had to wonder: with such strong opinions and no highly distinguishable magic surrounding him... How long would he last?

Right now, it didn't feel like long. Dara mentally ran through the lists and lists of all the ways he knew of how to kill someone without even being in the same room. With the migraine he was developing, he would need to pull one of them out of his sleeve just to keep himself here.

Lehrer clicked his tongue. "Dara. Focus. Do it again."

Once more he focused on creating the illusion: a rubber ball. It was easy enough to create, with a mostly smooth looking surface, apart from what would have been the manufacturing seam. Harder, though, was getting the physics behind it right. They had been at this for days, and Lehrer was growing tired of his shortcomings. But he was learning quickly, getting better and better.

That, and the dark bruises across the right side of his face were starting to heal. Once they did, he would be able to go back to occasionally being around the other cadets.

Including the screaming one, now. If he stayed.

Lehrer reached forward and snatched up the ball, Dara barely reacting quickly enough to the motion. Thankfully he didn't drop the illusion, or cause it to respond improperly to the touch. If he had failed at something so obvious again... It would be a lot longer before he could join the others again.

Lehrer threw the ball up into the air, but the spin wasn't quite right for how he threw it. To an untrained eye, maybe, it wouldn't have been apparent. But there was no more trained eye than the Chancellor.

"Again." Lehrer demanded, dropping the ball.

Dara tried to block out Noam's incessant screaming, and once more created the illusion of the ball.

***

It was days before Dara finally saw him in person. He showed up, eyes darting around the Chancellor's office, lingering when he noticed Dara. He tired to appear uninterested, to not be paying any attention to Noam at all, but in truth he was giving him the same look over.

He was thin in the way everyone from Ninth street was, and pale from lack of sunlight. Despite that, he was tall and, it pained Dara that he noticed so thoroughly, handsome. His eyes were dark brown with full lashes, his brown hair cut short and away from his face. A subtle bite mark dipped into his full lower lip.

But still, his thoughts screamed. Looking around the room, taking in all of the antiquated details of the furniture. Even when he was talking, asking where he should put his satchel. Nothing about Noam was quiet... Inside his head. From a purely physical standpoint...

His position was guarded, as if he didn't quite know what Dara would do. Every step he took was quiet, the kind of practiced walk that came from having to move without disturbing anyone else. Dara knew it well. That kind of movement was a sharp contrast from the loudness of his thoughts, imagining all sorts of ways Lehrer could train him, from grand to awful.

Dara wanted to laugh at the delusions of grandeur... And the most awful things he could imagine. Because none of them, he could say with certainty, were as bad as the Chancellor had truly done. Pain blossomed right behind his eyes from all the noise, just in time for Lehrer to enter.

Sitting Noam in the corner, having Dara continue with his apples. Things quieted down a little, but the pain still wouldn't subside as he worked.

*** 

Even far away from Noam, Dara swore he could still hear him in his head. It was infuriating his thoughts of the new cadet, so likely to flunk out of the system, still followed him everywhere. Painkillers and alcohol may have been a dangerous combination, but some days it took both to handle the yelling. Dara didn't care.

He couldn't wait for those thoughts to be gone, but, at the same time...

The passion behind it was moving. Never once did something come up that Noam didn't have a response to, a feeling about. He felt everything fully, with no holding back. It was as if everything hit him twice as hard as it hit everyone else.

Dara hated to hear him yell, but he had to admit that he would miss his voice once he was gone.

***

Col. Ames may have been the one with him tonight, but Dara found his mind wandering off to the way Noam's body must look under his tailored uniform. He tried to fight away those thoughts, but they never quite left his head.

"Dara, is something wrong?"

"Just a headache," He shrugged. "Nothing you need to worry about."

***

With everything over, Dara living outside of Carolinia and Noam in the government there, he thought it had to be over. The fever madness had almost killed him, spending days in and out of sickness, weak and slightly disoriented with Linda making sure he didn't die, but it hadn't succeeded. He had escaped. He was okay.

And Noam wasn't with him.

It was for the best. Dara tried to tell himself that as he read stolen newspapers about the things Noam was doing, as he saw the improvements being made.

But if he had thought that his screaming thoughts were grating, he wasn't even close to prepared for silence like this. There were the thoughts of the Atlantians around him, of course, but all of them thought in normal volumes. Some whispered. The loudest yells he heard had since moved on to better things. Now? He missed the screams, no matter how many times they made his head ache. No matter how many times he would go to bed wishing he could silence other people's thoughts. 

Because Noam was never quiet. Not with his constant all-nighters keeping Dara awake. The only times he was quiet were when they-

Well, that wasn't exactly true.

He was quiet when he finally slept, thoughts incoherent as everyone's were when they were unconscious. The only other time he quieted was when they were having sex, all of their thoughts a tangled mass that all kind of seemed the same. It was hard, sometimes, for Dara to tell where his started and Noam's began.

And now, simple enough, he missed him. He missed the way he went from quiet thoughts about his thighs to screaming got rage at the bruises there. He missed the way he scolded anyone, with fear of consequence but not enough to back away from what was right. He missed the fire in his dark brown eyes. The loudness of his soul. The way he kissed with his whole body.

Dara even missed the migraines, as crazy as that was to say.

***

A couple years passed. The frequency Dara was able to get newspapers and other such information at was increasing, but he found himself unable to read them. Noam Alvaro, doing this and that, succeeding, champion of the Atlantians, making sure there are equal rights for all...

It was good, but inhuman. Somehow, in all the fancy words and reports, it didn't even seem like Noam.

So Dara didn't see the information regarding him stepping down. He never saw the interviews about Noam going to Atlantia. 

Instead, he woke up to a knock on the door, a migraine already forming behind his eyes and a smile on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblrs are Supertinywords and Supertinybooks!
> 
> Comments are love <3


End file.
